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Rainy Days

It has been raining since yesterday morning and we are soggy! Our backyard is like a pond. The water is running down the hill some, but mostly standing in the yard. fortunately the dogs have sense enough to stay in their dog house and out of the rain.

The girls and I had to do some shopping today and it didn't look like it was going to stop raining anytime soon so we headed out to JoAnn Fabrics where I picked up some batting and backing fabric for the Kimberling Area Library quilt.

Next we stopped at McDonald's for lunch then went to Aldi's to buy groceries. By the time we got home and unloaded groceries - in the rain of cours - we were soaked through. We made hot tea for Hannah and me and hot chocolate for Mot to warm us up.

I've decided to hold off on painting the bathroom for a day or two and get caught up on laundry today. It's about all I can handle right now.

For any of you who don't know about it - there is an on-line shop-hop going on. You surf a list of on-line quilt/fabric shops and look for an emblem, click on it to register and you qualify for prizes depending on if you meet the required number of registrations. I think it's 130 visits to qualify for the grand-prize drawing. I've been surfing some of the shops and out of 10 sites I visited, I only found 2 of the emblems! They don't make it easy as they are hidden within the site. Many of those sites are hugh so you have to really surf to find them. It's really a lot of fun to see all the fabrics on-line. I've book marked some of the sites to visit later.

I've been looking for some 1930's repro fabrics to finish the quilt with the basket blocks I inherited from my grandmother. There isn't a quilt shop here in JC, only JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby and Walmart to purchase fabric and none of them have 1930's fabrics. If I want to go to a quilt shop I have to drive to Columbia which is about 30 miles away. I haven't been up there yet. But I did find one site on the shop-hop that sells 1930's fabrics and I think I'll buy some there. I'm looking for some softer, more pastel 1930's fabrics and I couldn't find them in Springfield - they were all very strong colors. Since the fabrics in the blocks are strong colors I want something less eye-catching for the alternate blocks. Ordering on-line will save me the gas money to drive to Columbia.

I removed my old zippers yesterday and completed attaching my new zippers. Along the way I made 2 additional sets of zipper leaders so I have the ability to have 3 quilts ready to zip on if I need to.

As promised, I took photos of the steps and will post them in stages. These directions are my own and you may be able to find other instructions out the internet. This is something I came up with on trial and error.

The first set of zipper leaders I made were with garment zipper that you buy by the yard at a fabric store. They didn't work out the way I wanted. They kept separating on their own. So now I have 8 yards of zipper to use in other projects.

First off you'll need some materials and supplies.

1. Canvas Duck - I purchased 4 yards of 60" wide canvas so I wouldn't have to seam the leaders. This is enough to make 5 sets of 2 leaders. Buy the length to match the length of your zippers.

2. Separating Zippers in the size of your choice - I purchased 144" long zippers f…

I have been designing quilting patterns for use with computerized quilting machines as well as with hand-guided machines. This is one of my latest designs. Since I don't have a computerized machine myself, I design patterns that can be used with or without a computerized machine.

This particular design is one that I have used with my longarm machine and looks really good in wholecloth quilts or in alternate blocks in pieced quilts.